Hans Gál: Music for Voices, Volume 2

In my review of Volume 1 (here) of this cycle of Hans Gál’s Music for Voices, I noted that this was a long-term project. I worried that the next volume may be a “long” time in appearing. Furthermore, the Hans Gál Website listed many choral works, with diverse voices and accompaniments, which made me concerned that some of these may be omitted from this project. I need not have worried. The present CD landed on my doorstep just over two years after the initial volume. The delay was due to the Covid pandemic. The disc includes a wide cross section of Gál’s music for chamber choir, including mixed voices, women’s voices and male-voice choir. Some are a cappella, others feature a piano accompaniment.

For some brief details of the composer’s life and achievement please see my earlier assessment. I am grateful to the detailed liner notes in the preparation of this review: there is precious little information available about this repertoire elsewhere. 

For some brief details of the composer’s life and achievement please see my earlier assessment. I am grateful to the detailed liner notes in the preparation of this review: there is precious little information available about this repertoire elsewhere.

The first work is the Drei Lieder nach Gedichten von Rainer Maria Rilke, op.31 (1928). These were written for three women’s voices (or three part women’s choir) with piano accompaniment and were completed whilst Gál was still living in Germany. In the first, Advent, the remarkably “impressionistic” piano prelude really does create “a whirlwind of snowflakes,” before the voices enter with their evocative description of a winter landscape. This is a perfect Yuletide offering. The Adagio is a quiet meditation on reading a book in twilight. The last, St Nepomuk is humorous, with its gentle mocking of the 14^th century Czech saint and martyr.

The Drei Gesänge, op.37 (1929-30) were premiered by Margarete Dessoff and her choir at the Town Hall, New York during 1931. The liner notes point out that they were amongst the first of the Gál’s works to be broadcast in Great Britain, sung by the BBC Singers during July 1938. The opening, Der römische Brunnen, is a poetic response to the Fontana dei Cavalli Marini in the Villa Borghese Gardens in Rome. Gál effortlessly uses the mixed voices to capture “the sound and movement of the water.” Am Abend is an elaborate choral setting, using contrapuntal devices to create the atmosphere of this metaphor for death. The final number, Wiegenlied is gentle and soothing in its development. The text is supposed to have been spoken by the water fairy Loreley. It was taken from Rheinmärchen (‘Rhine Fairy Tales’) by Clemens Brentano, known, amongst Mahler enthusiasts, for the cycle Des Knaben Wunderhorn.

Spätlese, to wine lovers, means “a late harvest” – usually referring to a vintage made from fully ripe grapes. This is appropriate here. Gál published op.91 collection in 1970 and it was to be his last choral piece. It sets poems by Goethe, the above mentioned Brentano and other German/Austrian authors. The liner notes are correct in suggesting that these settings “seemingly represent a desire to return to his native soil, now imbued with a deep musical wisdom wrought over a lifelong passion for the human voice.” The booklet’s commentary on Spätlese runs to over a thousand words. So briefly, these songs for male chorus display humour, storytelling, the healing nature of sleep, the release of death, sense of loss and an energetic play on the age old trope of the Lazy Shepherd.

It is difficult to imagine that the vivacious Two Madrigals to Poems by Thomas Lodge (1939-40) were written shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War, whilst Gál was living and employed in Edinburgh. Even more poignant, they were finished only a few months before he was interned as an “enemy alien.”  Lodge was an author and a medical practitioner who lived during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth I and King James VI and I. His literature was “full of playfulness, pithy short lines, and plenty of rhymes.”  The first, Her Rambling is a five part madrigal, which seems to offer many challenges to the choir, which are successfully met here. Carpe Diem (Seize the Day) is designed as a vocal gavotte, full of attractive melodic devices that capture the essence of Lodge’s command to “Pluck the fruit and taste the pleasure, /Youthful lordings, of delight” for sadly “After death, when you are gone/Joy and pleasure is there none.”

Hans Gál turned to the humorous verse of the nineteenth century humourist and poet Wilhelm Busch for his Drei Porträtstudien, op.34 (1929). This is a witty setting of three poems for male voices with piano accompaniment. From the gentle mocking of a pious parson to the revenge of an old donkey on some taunting schoolboys, and finally to the fly stuck in honey, but eventually freed (probably) by the poet, these songs both charm and delight. They are full of musical onomatopoeia as well as delightful turns of phrase. Listen to the impression of the fly created by the piano in Der Unvorsichtige: it is nearly as good as Rimsky Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumble Bee! These Drei Porträtstudien should be in the repertoire of all male voice choirs.

The Songs of Youth, op.75 were completed in 1959. Gál sets five poems by eminent English poets for women’s voices. First up, is Crabbed Age and Youth, attributed to William Shakespeare. It is a splendid bit of musical word painting, with strong dynamic contrasts reflecting the fast changing moods of the text. Love is a Sickness by Samuel Daniel (is a simple, strophic song that highlights the refrain “Why So?” with the “sardonic shrug” of “Heigh ho!” Another Shakespeare setting follows: Tell me, where is Fancy bred? taken from The Merchant of Venice. The focus here is the creation in the voices of bell-like pealing, complete with an imitation of the clapper. Capriccio is another setting of a poem by Thomas Lodge. It is also known as Rosalynde’s Madrigal. The final number, an Epilogue sets words by John Wilmot, 2^nd Earl of Rochester. This meditation on the “flirtatiousness, uncertainty, lovesickness and regret” heard throughout the cycle, but encapsulated in Rochester’s words, “The Present moment is all my lot.”  This is truly a cycle in its study of love, which ought not to be excerpted.

The final group on this CD are Three Lyrics to Poems by Thomas Moore (1942) for mixed voices and piano. I do not like to say the best is last, as everything on this disc is of considerable value, but I was impressed by the fusion of choral writing with the piano here. The first, Sacred Song, is a marvellous response to a rather tacky poem. Gál has created a powerful exploration of the notion that “This world is all a fleeting show.” The liner notes suggest that this sincere setting is “one of Gál’s finest and most deeply felt creations…”  Echo is dreamlike in its evocation of youth and love. It is one of the loveliest songs on this disc. Finally, Cupid’s Lottery, was taken from an interlude in Moore’s libretto for a comic opera M.P. or The Blue Stocking. It seems the story was a little bit of a farce, which may nowadays be deemed politically incorrect. However, Gál’s take is full of fun, and takes a swipe at Cupid’s knavish trade. Once again, the piano part is integral to the song’s success.

The recording is to the usual high standard of Toccata Classics. I have already remarked on the detailed, dissertation length of the discussion of the music in the liner notes. The texts of all the songs are given, with translations where appropriate. There is a special tribute to Tony Fox (1943-2021) who contributed much to the present project. He provided idiomatic translations of the German poems. Additionally, he created the Gál website, and translated/co-wrote the composer’s biography and interment diary: Hans Gál, Music Behind Barbed Wire: A Diary of 1940, Toccata Press, 2014.

Borealis, based in the North of England, was formed in 2017. They consist of a mixed choir of between sixteen singers, directed by Bridget Budge and Stephen Muir. Their ‘sound’ is an interesting blend of strength and intimacy, power, and reflection. Ian Buckle provides a magnificent service at the piano, with a commanding performance of several tricky accompaniments.

This second volume of Hans Gál’s vocal music impressed me as much as the first instalment. It is a great cross section of works composed over a period of four decades. I certainly look forward to the third.

Track Listing:
Hans Gál (1890-1987)
Drei Lieder nach Gedichten von Rainer Maria Rilke, op.31 (1928)
No.1 Advent
No.2 Adagio
No.3 Sankt Nepomuk
Drei Gesänge, op.37 (1929-30)
No.1 Der römische Brunnen
No.2 Am Abend
No.3 Wiegenlied
Spätlese, op.91 (1966)
No. 1 Bruder Augustin
No. 2 Abendlied
No. 3 Nachtgesang
No. 4 Grabschrift
No. 5 Trutzlied
No. 6 Der faule Schäfer
Two Madrigals to Poems by Thomas Lodge (1939-40)
No.1 Her Rambling
No.2 Carpe Diem
Drei Porträtstudien, op.34 (1929)
No. 1 Der Fromme
No. 2 Der Weise
No. 3 Der Unvorsichtige
Songs of Youth, op.75 (1959)
No.1 Crabbèd Age and Youth
No.2 Love is a Sickness
No.3 Tell me where is Fancy bred
No.4 Capriccio
No.5 Epilogue
Three Lyrics to Poems by Thomas Moore (1942)
No.1 Sacred Song
No.2 Echo
No.3 Cupid’s Lottery
Borealis/Bridget Budge and Stephen Muir
Ian Buckle (piano)
rec. 3-6 January 2020, Clothworkers Centenary Concert Hall, University of Leeds
TOCCATA CLASSICS TOCC 0644
With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review was first published.